Saturday, June 4, 2016

UNDER THE SURFACE by Anne Calhoun

UNDER THE SURFACE excerpt, v2

One of the most basic components of police work
was learning to control a situation. A good undercover cop adjusted his
personality and attitude to manage the situation according to his objectives.
Matt was as good as they came, and that bluff should have worked.

Except Eve Webber raised the stakes without blinking
an eye, and suddenly white-hot, explicit images of exactly how they’d finish
what she’d started flashed in his brain . . . the skirt that barely covered her
upper thighs, her desk, and that sleek mass of black hair she kept tugging free
from the glossy color on her mouth. Heat flashed through him, the sensation
shockingly intense.

Your job is to keep her alive, not get her into bed.

Eve emerged from her office around seven, iPhone in
hand, and once she started working the room the vibe punched up several
notches. Watching her smile and talk to the customers triggered something he
couldn’t put his finger on.

During a brief lull, he turned to Tom, the
steroid-buffed player working the station next to his. “She looks familiar.”

Tom hit the button on the blender to mix a raspberry
daiquiri. “She won the newspaper’s sexiest female bartender contest two years
running before she switched over to events management at the Met.” “Fucking moron” was implied at the end of that
sentence.

A niggling memory surfaced of the newspaper’s Arts and
Culture section getting passed around before the shift briefing a couple of
years ago, right before he made the leap to detective and started working long-term
undercover assignments. The article’s text meandered alongside a full-length
picture of Eve, hair tumbled into her face, hands braced on the bar behind her,
wearing a white blouse unbuttoned deep in her cleavage, a tight, short black
skirt, black stockings, and heels. Her slim legs were crossed at the ankle, and
the angle of the shot made them seemed endless. He should have been focused on
the briefing, but he’d given the photo a good thorough look before handing it
to his partner, who’d looked even longer.

The provocative shot actually masked what won Eve the
contest. In person she radiated vitality, a sheer visceral force that drew
light, glances, attention. Even more surprising was the way she didn’t hoard
the energy but rather turned it back on whomever she was talking to. Like that
person was the only person in the room. Like she heard what they were saying,
and maybe even what they weren’t saying.

Life flowed into this woman. She amplified it and sent
it back out into the world, and he couldn’t stop watching her.

She checked in with her bouncer, the size of the Hulk,
with gang ink disappearing into the sleeves of his T-shirt.

“That’s not an off-duty cop,” he said.

“Friend of the family,” Tom replied over the music. “Someone
her dad knew.”

“Bars this busy usually hire the pros,” Matt said as
he pulled out a fresh rack of glasses.

“You know what those assholes charge? They’re fucking
expensive,” Tom said as he handed the drink across the bar. “And they’re nosy. Hot
Stuff doesn’t like strangers in her business.”

Matt would bet his Jeep that Eve wouldn’t like being
called Hot Stuff, but if Tom hadn’t figured that out, Matt wasn’t about to
enlighten him. He watched as she cleared a couple of abandoned glasses off the
bar in front of him and handed them to a passing busboy, then came around the
corner of the bar, trailing her fingers along the polished wood. He handed the
drink to a customer and gave her his full attention.

“How are you doing?” she asked, scanning his station.

“You tell me,” he replied, and if he got a little
closer than necessary to hear what she was saying over the thumping dance
music, well, he was just doing his job. Given the heat in the bar, he expected
perfume, something musky and sexy. Instead the faintest scent of mint and
rosemary drifted into the air between them when she tucked her hair behind her
ears.

She was less than a breath away from him. A shift of
his weight and a deep inhale, and they’d be breathing together like they were
naked and horizontal. The heat sizzled and popped between them and it didn’t
take training in body language to read the signals. Eve Webber wanted him.

Chad Henderson. His undercover identity, the man he
was pretending to be. Not him.

No matter who he was today, neither he nor Chad could
have her. He was supposed to keep her safe, make sure she didn’t change her
mind about working with the department, monitor any appearances Murphy made in
Eye Candy.

He wanted her.

“I want the job,” he said, not bothering to hide what
he really meant.

She looked at him through the layered, sweeping fall
of hair he wanted to brush back so he could see her eyes, her mouth. “Hang
around after close. I’ll give you the paperwork to fill out and bring back with
you tomorrow.”

He leaned in, as if he needed to speak with her,
employee to employer, but didn’t want to shout over the music. “See you later, boss,” he rasped.

Synopsis

Welcome to Eye Candy, the East Side’s
hottest nightclub where the bartenders are hot, the cocktails are fancy, and
danger lurks just under the surface…

Eve Webber, the gorgeous and savvy owner of Eye Candy,
knows better than anyone that growing up on the wrong side of the tracks comes
with certain complications. Determined to run a clean business and fix up the
East Side, Eve’s plans get temporarily stalled when a potential new hire walks
into her bar. The sexual chemistry crackling between them is a potent
distraction…even if she refuses to mix business with the promise of pleasure.

Detective Matt Dorchester lives by strict rules that
have kept him alive in impossible situations. When his latest undercover
assignment has him playing a bartender, his desire for the passionate owner has
him breaking every single one. Eve is in danger and her life depends on his
secrecy. But once their attraction reaches a climactic conclusion, Matt must
make a desperate choice: Tell her the truth about who he really is—or risk a
once-in-a-lifetime love to save her life?

Bio

After doing time at Fortune 500 companies on both
coasts, Anne landed in a flyover state, where she traded business casual for
yoga pants and decided to write down all the lively story ideas that got her
through years of monotonous corporate meetings. Her first book, LIBERATING
LACEY won the EPIC Award for Best Contemporary Erotic Romance. Her story WHAT
SHE NEEDS was chosen for Smart Bitch Sarah's Sizzling Book Club. Anne holds a
BA in History and English, and an MA in American Studies from Columbia
University. When she's not writing her hobbies include reading, knitting, and
yoga. She lives in the Midwest with her family and singlehandedly supports her
local Starbucks.